Unter Donner

The theory that the most famous of all Strauss polkas was first performed under the title Sternschnuppe (Shooting Star) is difficult to accept. The music - with its drumrolls, its rumbling basses, its brilliant flashes of cymbal and piccolo sound, its general impression of the heavens let loose - is so appropriate to its present Unter Donner und Blitz (Thunder and Lightning) title that is scarcely credible that it could have been conceived with any other scenario in mind.